Just hours after the Oregon Army National Guard took over convoy security in Iraq Wednesday, a Salem soldier lost his left leg in a roadside bombing.

Spc. Jeremy Pierce, 22, was the first casualty among the 2,600 Oregonians serving a 10-month tour with the 41st Infantry Combat Brigade Team.

Pierce was a gunner guarding a late-night convoy when a roadside bomb ripped through his armored security vehicle. The blast trapped him in the turret where soldiers were unable to reach him. Pierce, who also lost all the toes on his right foot and a finger, was left to his own devices.

"No one could get to me. I held my thigh so I wouldn't bleed out. I started to pull myself out of the hatch," Pierce said in an interview Friday at a hospital in Balad, an airbase about 70 miles north of Baghdad.

"I remember Sgt. Brandon Christopherson telling me to stay awake as I was losing most of my blood," Pierce said from his hospital bed. "I remember looking at my left hand, noticing that I had part of my finger missing. I knew I couldn't stand up; my boot was in another spot. I remember wanting water."

Once Pierce dragged himself outside the vehicle, fellow soldiers stayed by his side as he was transported by ground to Baghdad. The precise location of the bombing remains classified. About 10 hours later, a Salem-based Blackhawk helicopter transported Pierce to the Balad hospital.

It mattered to the Guard medevac unit that a fellow Oregon soldier needed them. "This time we had one of ours wounded," said Balad flight medic 1st Sergeant Travis Powell, 39, of Molalla.

Sgt. Ben Sjullie, 30, of Salem, wasn't on duty, but when he heard that a soldier serving with an Oregon unit needed an evacuation, he volunteered as a second medic. "You know if it's somebody from an Oregon brigade, you don't want another medevac unit to bring in your patient," said Sjullie. "The injured soldier brings you real close to home, you want to be there for him and bring your own wounded home."

Back in Balad, flight medic Powell notified other medevac soldiers that a fellow Oregonian was being brought in. "The least we could do was give him a salute after he finished the last convoy he'll be doing for us," said Powell.

As the Blackhawk landed on Balad's helipad with Pierce inside, about 30 fellow soldiers lined up on the walkway to the hospital doors and saluted as Pierce's gurney rolled by.

Until Pierce is transferred from Balad to Germany, which could happen as early as today, Brigade Commander Col. Dan Hokanson and about eight Oregon soldiers will take shifts so Pierce is never alone. His battle buddy, Spc. Scott Tyrrel, 26, who lives in California, is also by his side offering juice or Chap Stick, or whatever his wounded friend needs. Tyrrel will travel with Pierce to Germany, and then Tyrrel will return to his base in Al-Asad, where they were both stationed. Pierce will be going back to Oregon. "He doesn't want to get sent home," says Tyrrel.

On Friday afternoon, Pierce received a Purple Heart. He already has a Bronze Star from his first deployment with the Alaskan National Guard in 2008. He joined the Oregon Guard after that, and deployed to Iraq this summer.

"You can't really prepare yourself for this," said Pierce, his bright green eyes illuminated by the fluorescent hospital lights. "I knew what I was getting into."

Pierce will celebrate his 23rd birthday on Aug. 21.

Cali Bagby is an embedded journalist with Charlie Company, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation, a medevac unit based out of Salem. She has been with the unit in Iraq for a little over three months.